International Sociology and International Sociology Reviews

Nonviolent mobilization
‘Nonviolent mobilization’ is our Topic of the Month for March 2021. On this topic, enjoy Free Access all month to this article by Selina Gallo-Cruz (College of the Holy Cross, USA) published in International Sociology, Nonviolence beyond the state: International NGOs and local nonviolent mobilization. Read on to know more about the author’s trajectory and work:

Selina Gallo-Cruz

Why are you working on this topic? Could you share an experience, a fact or a person who made you get engaged on that research?

S. Gallo-Cruz: As a young global justice activist, I was keenly aware that nongovernmental organizations were instrumental in facilitating networks of solidarity and movement building across borders. But I was curious about the challenges and limitations of this work. When I later began my dissertation research into the global spread of nonviolence, I was struck by the near invisibility of these international actors among scholarship that described nonviolence as a spontaneous grassroots movement, even as many organizations supported our work in a number of ways. The more I pored over the growing number of case studies of nonviolent movements, and the more I spoke with activists on the ground and those who had spent decades of their lives facilitating cross-national networks, I realized the importance of making visibile this matrix of transnational mobilization and more so, understanding its impacts on the global spread of nonviolence. I began first by counting the number of international organizations that were explicitly doing cross-border mobilization and statistically examining the growth and effects of these organizations (part of this research is detailed in “Nonviolence Beyond the State”). My inquiry followed by qualitatively examining how INGOs were mobilizing and then listening to the stories of activists involved in these networks at every level.

Do you have any video, recorded conference, or online material that you would like us to share with others?

S. Gallo-Cruz: You can access a video presentation on my research in the globalization of nonviolence here: https://youtu.be/d1NjUQdWHeE
My personal website is here: https://sites.google.com/holycross.edu/selinagallo-cruz/
My faculty page is here: https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/sociology-and-anthropology/faculty/selina-r-gallo-cruz

What would you emphasize about your academic trajectory? Can you highlight which have been your academic positions, universities, awards, departments and research centers?

S. Gallo-Cruz: My work has been supported by many notable fellowships and institutions for which I am grateful. These include an Emory University Laney Diversity Fellowship, the American Sociological Association Minority Dissertation Fellowship, the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies Gender, Conflict, and Peacebuilding Fellowship, and the generous support of visiting scholar positions at the University of New Mexico and Brandeis University. Research funding from Emory University and College of the Holy Cross provided additional valuable support to my project.